Page:Woman in Art.djvu/299

 PART IV

Motherhood in Art

CHAPTER XX

Gospel of Beauty. Mary of the Hebrews; Saint Monica and Her Son. Mothers in Renaissance Painting.

The poetry of art is drawn from the poetry of nature. All pictures are not on canvas, nor are they wall paintings. Here is a picture to listen to. Let your mind supply the color, the light and shade and the spirit, which is the life of all true beauty. The sketch is from life, from the "Birks o' Aberfelde," hidden amid the Scottish Highlands.

The Sabbath morning air was radiant, pure and clear. At the foot of the birches on the steep hillside the woodland stream rushed, rippled, and splashed into sparkling light and glee.

The slender white steeple of the little kirk pierced the thick foliage. Neat white homes faced the road that surrounded the sacred precinct of the village common, hedged about by hawthorn in full bloom. Each side of the common had a stile of its own. No one was seen on the street till the bell called them, then from every doorway, with reverence in voice and mein, old and young turned their steps toward the door of the kirk. Young men and maidens carried the Bible, but more often James took that of Janet with his own; or Donald plucked a spray of bluebells that blushing Ruth accepted and tucked in the edge of her bodice, as he handed her over the stile. O 239